Suchergebnisse

European Integration is currently facing tremendous challenges caused by a series of cumulating crises. Their onset was the global financial and economic crisis in 2008 that rapidly evolved into a sovereign debt crisis, further into a crisis of the Eurozone and led eventually to a political crisis of the entire EU. National political elites have been among the core actors to cope with these challenges. Their behaviour is driven by their Europeanness, i.e. their emotionally and rationally determined attitudes, cognitions and strategies regarding European Integration. Given their pivotal role, the purpose of this introductory article is twofold: Firstly, providing an overview about the elitist approach to European integration by introducing the main concepts, the methodology and the data basis on which the country studies in this HSR Special Issue rely on; secondly, enfolding a comparative perspective on the development of national elites' Europeanness during the course of the mentioned crises. The article shows that the crises have affected national elites' Europeanness in complex ways that are determined by the diverging impact they had on the investigated countries and by how elites perceive the efficiency of supranational integration to cope with them. Beyond national differences, the general evaluations of Europeanness remain quite stable pro-European while preferences regarding the concrete organization of integration are rather prone to change. Elites' Europeanness primarily shifts in countries, in which strong Eurosceptic parties gained ground during the mentioned crisis indicating that there is a challenge of responsiveness for the still overwhelmingly pro-European elites.

European Integration is currently facing tremendous challenges caused by a series of cumulating crises. Their onset was the global financial and economic crisis in 2008 that rapidly evolved into a sovereign debt crisis, further into a crisis of the Eurozone and led eventually to a political crisis of the entire EU. National political elites have been among the core actors to cope with these challenges. Their behaviour is driven by their Europeanness, i.e. their emotionally and rationally determined attitudes, cognitions and strategies regarding European Integration. Given their pivotal role, the purpose of this introductory article is twofold: Firstly, providing an overview about the elitist approach to European integration by introducing the main concepts, the methodology and the data basis on which the country studies in this HSR Special Issue rely on; secondly, enfolding a comparative perspective on the development of national elites' Europeanness during the course of the mentioned crises. The article shows that the crises have affected national elites' Europeanness in complex ways that are determined by the diverging impact they had on the investigated countries and by how elites perceive the efficiency of supranational integration to cope with them. Beyond national differences, the general evaluations of Europeanness remain quite stable pro-European while preferences regarding the concrete organization of integration are rather prone to change. Elites' Europeanness primarily shifts in countries, in which strong Eurosceptic parties gained ground during the mentioned crisis indicating that there is a challenge of responsiveness for the still overwhelmingly pro-European elites.

Since the adhesion of Spain to the EEC in 1986, the Spanish electorate has shown a high level of support for the European integration process. Even more enthusiastic than their fellow citizens, Spanish political elites also expressed a strong commitment to the European integration project, based in a pro-EU consensus beyond party and ideological divides. However, Spain has also been one of the countries most affected by the economic and financial crisis that has hit the EU (particularly the Eurozone) since 2010. The main questions we aim to answer in this paper is whether this crisis and its management by EU institutions has eroded the traditional support for the EU shown by Spanish domestic political elites and, if so, to what extent. To this end, we draw on survey data provided by the InTune and ENEC-2014 projects on the attitudes of Spanish MPs towards the EU in the years 2007, 2009, and 2014. Results show that the traditional pro-EU stance of Spanish MPs has remained mostly stable during the crisis, yet such stability has increased the representation gap with citizens in this area.

Party regulation in new democracies in general, and in the Spanish political system in particular, has not been a matter of concern until very recently. In order to fill this gap, this article explores the way political parties have been regulated not only in the Constitution, but also in the main laws regulating party foundation, organisation, dissolution and, not least, funding: namely, the 1978 and 2002 Political Party Laws as well as the 1985 and 2007 Party Funding Laws. The empirical part explores the impact such regulation has had on the Spanish party system as well as on the life of its party organisations. Adapted from the source document.

This book analyzes how mainstream and new parties are building their digital platforms and transitioning from traditional (offline) organizations into the digital world. The authors present an innovative empirical exploration of the democratic consequences and technical challenges of the digitalization of party organizations from a comparative perspective. They provide an original account of how party digital platforms are regulated and used, and a crucial discussion of the main technological and democratic issues that political parties face in their digital transition. Further, the authors assess the consequences of these digitalization processes for political participation and party membership, as well as the impact on party organizational models and electoral campaign potential. The book looks into one of the less-studied aspects of digital democracy, also presenting empirical evidence and case studies. It presents different parties and their adoption of digital participation platforms, from the Pirate Parties in Northern Europe to Podemos in Spain, La France Insoumise in France, the Five Stars Movement in Italy, or the German Greens. Therefore, the book is a must-read for scholars of political science, policy-makers, and practitioners, interested in a better understanding of the transition of political parties into the digital world.

The aim of this article is to test whether between 1977 and 2008 has been an increase in internal democracy in the main Spanish political parties. We will focus on the process of selecting the leader. Our research question is whether parties have fostered equality in the participation to select party leader, favouring representative tools or direct election either. We also test the hypothesis that the degree of equality in the selection party rules affects the degree of political competition amongst candidates for party leadership. The paper observes the conditions of eligibility (certification), the selectorate who chooses the leader, the level of participation of members and the level of competitiveness in the election. The results show that the parties have strengthened representation mechanisms for leader selection. Conversely, we didn't find empirical relation between selection party rules and the degree of competition for leadership. Adapted from the source document.